Whenever people talk about the benefits of traveling, they always seem to note how “broadening” it is; how it opens your eyes to all of the world’s diversity and differences. And though that is true, what I enjoy most about traveling is not so much seeing the world’s differences, but rather its “samenesses”. There is nothing quite like being halfway around the world and seeing someone having the exact same problems I have (albeit in a different language) for making me feel–for one brief, shining moment–that, just maybe, I am not completely crazy.
This is especially true when it comes to parenting: so much of parenting happens behind closed doors that it soon becomes easy to believe that your children alone are the only ones who are ill-mannered, whiny, spoiled rotten, and, in general, insufferable, and that all other families are models of smooth running perfection.
Witness a family on vacation, however–when the thin veneer of civilization is stripped from even the most Stepford of families–and you will see that they are all neurotic, dysfunctional and socially backwards–in other words, just like yours. Travel far enough, and you’ll even see that this is true for the very same families to which we are so often held up to, and found lacking: the European family.
Call me jingoistic, but after years of being made to feel inferior about nearly every aspect of American parenting–the schools our kids attend, the food they eat, the TV shows they watch–there is just something immensely gratifying about the sight of a sullen, iPod-clutching teenager getting chewed out for her rotten attitude in Italian.
Our last trip was perfect for voyeurism of this sort, since we were traveling in open-topped Land Rovers that functioned as little mobile living rooms on wheels. Even though we were not actually a part of those other families, when our small herds of Land Rovers jockeyed with each other for better and better viewing positions on the Serengeti we could not help but eavesdrop on their domestic squabbles, so that before long we were privy to not only the above-mentioned Italian scolding, but also cases of English whining, French shushing, and, I’m not sure, but I think Japanese “I’m going to count to ten”-ing as well.
And then, of course, there were the elephants. One day, while waiting for a family of elephants to cross the road in front of us I witnessed a parenting scene so eerily familiar I almost thought I was experiencing deja vu. During the crossing–perhaps due to some earlier, unwitnessed tiff, but more likely just due to general orneriness–a young (approximately 8 years old, according to our guide) elephant decided that a dangerous road crossing was the perfect time to give another, even younger (3 to 4 years old) elephant a swift slap with his trunk. This played out just like it would in a human family, with the baby elephant yelping and caterwauling like it was being stuck all over with knives, and the older one affecting the elephant version of the “What did I do?” face.
That’s when the older female who had just crossed the road in front of them executed a quick about face, charged back into the road and issued a very loud, and very exasperated warning trumpet as she hustled the wayward children off the road. And though I no more claim to speak elephant than I do Japanese, I’m fairly certain that her aggrieved roar translated into something like: “I have had it with you kids. So help me, I will pull this migration over right now–do you hear me?”
That, together with the Babel of scoldings I had been hearing throughout the day, was almost enough to convince me that we really are all the same–in fact, with some elephant-sized iPods I’m sure all of our children could learn to sulk as one.